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  Advertisements for initiating and/or establishing user-advertiser telephone callsUSPTO Application #: 20070094073Title: Advertisements for initiating and/or establishing user-advertiser telephone calls Abstract: Advertisements that facilitate telephonic communications between users and advertisers, and which avoid perceived problems or limitations of PPC and CTC offerings, are described. These advertisements may include offer information used to score the ad and/or to assess a charge to the advertiser in the event of a call conversion. (end of abstract) Agent: Straub & Pokotylo - Tinton Falls, NJ, US Inventors: Rohit Dhawan, Kosar Jaff, Scott Ludwig, Ervin Perertz, Narayanan Shivakumar USPTO Applicaton #: 20070094073 - Class: 705014000 (USPTO) Related Patent Categories: Data Processing: Financial, Business Practice, Management, Or Cost/price Determination, Automated Electrical Financial Or Business Practice Or Management Arrangement, Distribution Or Redemption Of Coupon, Or Incentive Or Promotion Program The Patent Description & Claims data below is from USPTO Patent Application 20070094073. Brief Patent Description - Full Patent Description - Patent Application Claims
.sctn. 0. RELATED APPLICATIONS [0001] This application claims benefit to Provisional Application Ser. No. 60/729,652 (incorporated herein by reference), titled "IMPROVED ADVERTISEMENTS FOR INITIATING AND/OR ESTABLISHING USER-ADVERTISER TELEPHONE CALLS," filed on Oct. 24, 2005, and listing Rohit Dhawan, Kosar Jaff, Scott Ludwig, Ervin Peretz and Shiva Shivakumar as the inventors. .sctn. 1. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0002] .sctn. 1.1 Field of the Invention [0003] The present invention concerns advertising, such as advertising in an online environment. In particular, the present invention concerns helping advertisers generate telephone calls with users. [0004] .sctn. 1.2 Background Information [0005] Advertising using traditional media, such as television, radio, newspapers and magazines, is well known. Unfortunately, even when armed with demographic studies and entirely reasonable assumptions about the typical audience of various media outlets, advertisers recognize that much of their ad budget is simply wasted. Moreover, it is very difficult to identify and eliminate such waste. [0006] Recently, advertising over more interactive media has become popular. For example, as the number of people using the Internet has exploded, advertisers have come to appreciate media and services offered over the Internet as a potentially powerful way to advertise. [0007] Interactive advertising provides opportunities for advertisers to target their ads to a receptive audience. That is, targeted ads are more likely to be useful to end users since the ads may be relevant to a need inferred from some user activity (e.g., relevant to a user's search query to a search engine, relevant to content in a document requested by the user, etc.) Query keyword relevant advertising has been used by search engines, such as the AdWords advertising system by Google, Inc. of Mountain View, Calif. (hereafter referred to as "Google"). Similarly, content-relevant advertising systems have been proposed. For example, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/314,427 (incorporated herein by reference and referred to as "the '427 application") titled "METHODS AND APPARATUS FOR SERVING RELEVANT ADVERTISEMENTS", filed on Dec. 6, 2002 and listing Jeffrey A. Dean, Georges R. Harik and Paul Buchheit as inventors, and Ser. No. 10/375,900 (incorporated by reference and referred to as "the '900 application") titled "SERVING ADVERTISEMENTS BASED ON CONTENT," filed on Feb. 26, 2003 and listing Darrell Anderson, Paul Bucheit, Alex Carobus, Claire Cui, Jeffrey A. Dean, Georges R. Harik, Deepak Jindal and Narayanan Shivakumar as inventors, describe methods and apparatus for serving ads relevant to the content of a document, such as a Web page for example. The AdSense system by Google is an example of a content-relevant advertising system. [0008] In many online ad systems, one or more ads are displayed in association with a document, such as a search results page, or a Web page with content for example. Typically, online ads include embedded information (e.g., links) such that when the ad is selected (e.g., by a user clicking on the ad), a browser is loaded with a document (e.g., a Web page) associated with the ad. Such a document is commonly referred to as the "landing page" of the ad. [0009] Although using Web pages, such as those authored in HTML or some other markup language for example, as ad landing pages is useful in many situations, some advertisers might prefer to have users contact them by telephone. For example, some advertisers might not have a Website or a sophisticated ad landing page As another example, some advertisers might find that they generate more sales, or higher margin sales, when a potential customer calls them versus when a potential customer visits their Website. In addition, some users might prefer to contact an advertiser by telephone. For example, some users might be more comfortable talking with a person, or might be using a client device that does not render Web pages well and/or on which it is difficult to enter information necessary to place an order for a product or service (e.g., due to display limited in terms of resolution and/or size, a slow connection speed, limited input means, limited processing power, etc.). [0010] Some existing advertising networks use certain technologies for people to contact advertisers by telephone. These technologies may be referred to as "click to call" (or "CTC") and "pay per call" (or "PPC"). Each of these technologies and their perceived limitations are introduced below. [0011] PPC presents special toll-free numbers in advertisements or on Web pages. The use of such special toll-free numbers can be tracked so that advertisers can be billed on a per call basis when end users place calls to the special toll-free numbers. The company Ingenio of San Francisco, Calif. reportedly provides such technology to advertisers that run targeted advertisements on search engines such as AOL and FindWhat, as well as business that want to generate calls from their own Websites. Unfortunately, such implementations of PPC require a user to dial the advertiser. If such a user encounters a PPC toll free number on a device without call functionality, they might have to memorize or write down the toll free number, and access a telephone. This may be cumbersome in many situations and may dissuade a user from making a telephone call. [0012] On the other hand, CTC allows a user to enter a number at which an advertiser may reach the user. Typically, when a user selects (e.g., clicks) an advertisement or a special icon in an advertisement, the user is presented with a screen or form that requests the user to enter a telephone number at which the advertiser can call the user back. A call server attempts to connect the advertiser and the user. If the user picks up the telephone at the number provided, the advertiser is able to speak with the user. The company eStara of Reston, Va. reportedly provides such technology to advertisers that advertise on Verizon's SuperPages.sup.SM. Although CTC avoids making the user memorize or write down a special toll free number, CTC has been offered in ways that don't fully exploit its potential. Further, the eStara implementation of CTC apparently requires a user to click on an advertisement or an element of an advertisement before the user is presented with the screen or form that requests the user to enter their telephone number. Such a multi-window (or multi-page) approach may be confusing and cumbersome to some users. [0013] In view of the foregoing, it would be useful to provide advertisements that facilitate telephone communications between users and advertisers, and which avoid perceived problems or limitations of PPC and CTC offerings. .sctn. 2. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION [0014] The present invention may be used to provide advertisements that facilitate telephone communications between users and advertisers, and which avoid perceived problems or limitations of PPC and CTC offerings. Embodiments consistent with the present invention may do so by (a) serving a set of one or more ads with a document, wherein at least one ad in the set of ad(s) is a click and pay to call ad, (b) accepting an end user conversion on the click and pay to call ad, (c) establishing a telephone connection between the end user and a party at a telephone number associated with the click and pay to call ad, and (d) assessing a charge to an account of an advertiser associated with the click and pay to call ad. [0015] In at least some embodiments consistent with the present invention, the click and pay to call ad includes an offer per call, or a maximum offer per call. [0016] In at least some embodiments consistent with the present invention, the click and pay to call ad includes executable code for accepting a call-back telephone number from the end user, or executable code for accepting a call-back telephone number stored on a client device. [0017] In at least some embodiments consistent with the present invention, the accepted end user conversion on the click and pay to call ad includes an entry of a call-back telephone number and a selection of a connect element, or user interaction with the click and pay to call ad itself and not with any elements linked from the click and pay to call ad. .sctn. 3. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS [0018] FIG. 1 is a high-level diagram showing parties or entities that can interact with an advertising system. [0019] FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating an environment in which, or with which, embodiments consistent with the present invention may operate. [0020] FIG. 3 is a flow diagram of an exemplary method for selecting, serving and accounting for exemplary click and pay to call ("CPTC") ads in a manner consistent with the present invention. Continue reading... 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